


this house doesn't burn down slowly

by sazzafraz



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Again, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Canon Typical Violence, Character Study, F/M, Families of Choice, M/M, Pining, Rule 63, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-17
Updated: 2012-09-17
Packaged: 2017-11-14 11:03:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/514547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sazzafraz/pseuds/sazzafraz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>6 years in the life of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this house doesn't burn down slowly

**Author's Note:**

> And this is the last universe I'm stating for awhile. I promise, I promise. 
> 
> Basically, I want to knock this over in the next two weeks. If you'd like to check my progress or just to yell at me head to my tumblr (http://slowtakedowns.tumblr.com/), where I will be most of this week. It's empty currently but I'll fix that. 
> 
> Oh, and Derek is still called Derek because fuck gender norms.

You can live with a lot of things and a broken heart is one of them. It’s really not half as terrible as romance novels and Hollywood would tell you. Just a tiny constant ache at the back of your throat. Just a small hitch in your breath as you remember all over again just how alone you’re going to be. A broken heart isn’t heavy, it doesn’t drag you down, not when you’ve had it long enough. You grow into it.

You can grow into a lot of things.

\--

When she is 15 and full to the brink of breaking a man leans his face down to hers when she’s in the water, says, _good job sweetie._ She’s not smart enough to see through it, just sounds like a compliment from a beautiful stranger.

He says other things too, uncovers the warm, wet, new heart of her and holds it in his hands greedily. He won’t share her, doesn’t like it when she leaves, and she takes it for romance. She tells him secrets and he fucks her in thanks. It’s not what she thinks then but it’s what she knows now. The quiet, studious girl with a killer backstroke and minor anger management problems turns into a monster of fury and loathing. She see’s Kyle once before Laurent makes them leave. She screams for him and he hugs her, pets her on the head.

Kyle sighs, kindly, hand clutching at the back of her neck like a vice. ‘God but you are a _stupid_ girl.’

\--

It’s the spring. The air is warm and green. She hasn’t felt full in days.

The thing about born wolves is that all that bad erotica is true, cycles and all that shit. The first time spring crawled inside her and called her ready she rutted against doors and stairs and furniture for days. Up and down again until she could breathe through it. They call it _the spring_ because of the imagery of life even though all she has is a desperate keening to _not be empty._ It screws up her exams that year, hitting her on the first day and leaving her desperate, desperate, desperate _._ Peter laughed, she remembers, told her that it would get easier. Peter was kind before. He thinks she doesn’t get it but she does, the fire burnt away parts of her too.  

She remembers Kyle with his big, big hands and his big everything else, smoothing her down and she thought she’d have him in the spring. She didn’t, shit happened, she tries not to dwell, but when it comes around again, almost five months after the fire, she finds herself dull. The bloom of _now_ and _please_ and the overwhelming _need_ just doesn’t come. In a toilet stall in a Chicago bistro far past better days she looks at herself in the bathroom mirror. There are prices you’re asked to pay for bad deeds. She thought hers was fire but it seems she’s lost the spring too.

\--

In New York on the break of New Years, drunk and getting steadily drunker she tells Laurent the truth. She tells him about Kyle and how he felt and what he said and what made her think she was in love with him. She talks until New Years sunrise fades to midday and Kyle begs her to stop. He leaves her there, alone, for the first time since he clawed his way into her classroom to get to her. He doesn’t come back for a day and then two and on the third day of his absence she gets into a bar fight. This time she doesn’t go home, not when he texts or calls or begs through her voicemail. She leaves him to hang because he did it to her and she’s never handled being along well, not ever. On the sixteenth day when she can’t pretend to be high any longer and food is becoming too difficult to swindle she goes back to their tiny apartment and finds Laurent asleep in her clothes. The floral material is too tight across his shoulders and gets lewder the further down you go. Laurent is a carbon copy of her but masculine and she wasn’t even small to begin with. He wakes up when she brings a peace offering of eggs and bacon. His eyes narrow. His eyes go red.

He slaps her. ‘You stupid, stupid little girl.’

She startles, feels another tear in what’s left of her, the fire and the spring and now her brother pouring out of her, she gums it up with a bubbling anger that starts in her fangs and keeps her vision blurred but steady. Says, ‘okay.’

He regrets it and apologises, piles all over her until she says he’s forgiven but the truth is that he’s not, really, and the truth is that he might be right. If all the important people in your life, all the milestones and the pickets by which you judge yourself start saying the same thing isn’t it time to consider that it might just be true?

\--

Scott McCall is a dumbass that much is obvious.

But he’s _her_ dumbass and while she loved Natalie and Laurent she’s always wanted a little brother. From what she’s seen from her vantage in the woods he’s kind and smart enough and a good kid. She’d like that. Stiles is another unknown and that kicks something uncomfortable where she’s grown animal instinct. She can’t react properly and covers it with violence. She adopts Jackson somewhat accidentally, after all the shit with Gerard she kind of owes him, strangely enough, it’s him and Isaac who really take to the pack she’s trying to build. Lydia folds in too and _there_ is a guilty understanding she wants no taste of.

Things change and they all grow up a little. Peter dies again and she mourns, comes back and she mourns again. All her family dead to her but the Uncle who understands her better than she’d like. Peter smiles like he’s got a plan and that’s probably true but what she gets stuck on is the way he looks sadly at her from the corner of an eye. Pity and remorse. For the umpteenth time she wishes she was born a boy, born an alpha instead of a pathetic excuse of one doing her best to not drown. There’s the _thump, thump_ of self loathing she can never leave behind for more than a few minutes, never can remember how to be anything but _angry_ and just as she remembers Peter as kind he remembers her as _happy._  

‘It’s spring soon.’ Peter says while they paint the hallway one cold winter afternoon. Stiles and Scott have just left and Lydia and Isaac are about to arrive.

‘So it is.’ She replies. The hallway is robin’s egg blue, will never be the cream her mother chose again. She’d wanted to recreate it exactly but she’s self aware enough to know what she was trying to paint was a tomb.

Peter sighs dramatically. ‘What are we going to do about it?’

She blinks a little. The fumes are always a little too strong for her nose. ‘I thought you knew.’ She thought it was obvious.

‘That you’re terrible at forward planning, yes, darling D, I knew that.’

She rubs her nose and stirs her paint some more, the colour is splitting. ‘No. I don’t have a spring anymore.’

Peter puts down his paintbrush and rearranges his shirt. ‘I have no idea why my sister was so insistent on the flower metaphors. Use your words.’

‘I haven’t gone into heat _since_ Peter. Can we get back to painting now?’

‘Derek,’ Peter says, actually concern showing on his face, ‘it’s been almost 9 years.’

‘It’s not something you forget.’

‘We can talk to Deaton.’ He says decidedly.

She almost laughs. It figures that _this_ would be the one area where Peters somewhat dubious sociopathic disregard for people that are not himself would fail. ‘You were always domestic,’ she says with as little vitriol as she can manage. ‘I was never that interested in family anyway.’

‘Except for that boy when you were 15.’

The paint brush drips blue paint on to the floor. She rolls her shoulder and reminds herself that being angry about it has always worked. ‘Except for that.’

Peter hears Lydia and is, as usual, drawn away to her. It’s a source of intense amusement to her that the Peter can’t help but revolve around Lydia now. In the beginning it had been more akin to a horror show, Peter stalking her down and terrifying her, right up until Lydia figured out that just as he’d terrified her into being controlled she could throw it back, loop him around her finger until he _had_ to do what she wanted. It’s not fair and it’s still not even but Lydia is vicious enough to make it work.

To her surprise the quick patter of a third pair of feet comes with Isaac and Lydia. The medicated and vaguely salty smell of Stiles coming into full force in the hallway. He’s grown into himself and into his shoulders recently. She hadn’t noticed.

‘Stiles,’ she says archly, ‘you’re back already?’

‘I am not here to move tables.’ He says immediately.

She snorts. ‘Okay.’

He visibly gears himself up. His hands move and his fingers are very long. ‘Scott said something strange and I need to know if it’s true.’

‘Shoot.’

‘Do werewolves go into heat?’ He asks in a flurry.

‘Born wolves, not turned.’ His eyes widen immediately, muscles bunching and releasing, ‘and no it’s not like porn.’

‘So you and Peter don’t...’

She really can’t imagine what her face looks like right now, comical or horrified. ‘No, Stiles, that’s not, not with _family._ ’

‘Right.’

‘Can we be done now?’

‘Oh yeah.’

The thing is for all the talk of pairs and harmony and all the times they’ve had each other’s back she doesn’t actually think about Stiles Stilinski in more than an abstract way. What’s to think about? He’s a bunch of words and body. Loud, smart, loyal, obnoxious, _loud_. Her father used to obsess about colours. Used to scream about colour theory every time her mother painted something beige. Her father would have called Stiles orange or red or yellow. Derek likes the dark, finds it comforting. She’s always been darker shades and now that she’s thinking about him and her and _complimenting_ she can’t stop. He really has grown into himself. Long and toned and competent. Mastered a couple dead languages got a few dozen spells under his belt. Useful. Handsome. Perfect for a nice spring-

‘Oh,’ she says, robin’s egg travelling down her palms.

\--

Look, she’s not surprised and if she’s aiming for truthful it’s not unexpected.

Her parents said it’d happen, happens to them all,; they’d hated the word _mate,_ fantasy novels, and TV shows ripping out the meaning. It’s compatibility mostly, who’s got what it takes to get you to where you need to be. Her parents met in a ditch in Kentucky and Peter met his when she punched him square in the face. She was there for Ben, a slinky little thing that made Laurent run circles before finally just turning up with a bow on the side of his head in Laurent’s bed. That had been awkward.  

She used to think it would be nice to have one, maybe someone who liked to read as much as her. Someone who liked the autumn and the water at night as much as she did. Kyle hadn’t, he’d liked the moon but not the dark, not when he couldn’t control it. In a different girl that might have been in a warning. For her it was a quirk.

Stiles doesn’t mind the dark and he likes reading. Loves pumpkin in everything so autumn isn’t a problem. She wants to think he’s kind and compassionate but he’s not and she’s not going to kid herself by pretending he’s got a less grey view of things than her. It could happen, maybe, if they worked for it.

It’s not like she hasn’t considered it. Life is small in Beacon hills and while some things might be dead for her it all still works. It’s an idle fantasy and she can’t bring herself to feel bad about it. Doesn’t add it to the pile of loathing and that, really, should have been warning enough. Now that she knows and now that she wonders openly it’s getting harder to control the ache in her hips and belly. Harder to control the monster. It’s not fuck or die and it’s not unrelenting need. It’s wave after wave of why this could be _good_ with no room for why it would be bad. Apparently biology is biased. Eventually she gets her brain to think clearly, he’s young still and going away soon. There’s nothing to hold onto, really, she should just let go.

She should let go.

\--

She doesn’t but then that’s just another marker in the fence of stupid decisions she’s made.

\--

Isaac cooks on Sundays. He spends all day in the newly renovated kitchen and puts food for days on the table at 7pm. Everyone is required to attend. She spends all day up until dinner tucked into the secret nook in Laurent’s old room, the walls still creak when she moves and the view heads straight out into the forest. Stiles is playing lacrosse with Scott and Jackson. By playing she means being dirty referee to their equally dirty game of lacrosse. If she just wanted to fuck him that would be okay. It would be inconvenient but manageable. It’s not what she wants. She wants to see what would make him happy and what would make him laugh and what would make him cry. It’s not easy.

Her mother used to tell wild stories about the man Peter was, kind and caring and generous and then suddenly in your bed and out again before you could lock the silver. She’d laughed and laughed the day she met tall, dark, Zoey from Egypt. She’d taken exactly ten seconds of shit before decking him and telling him that if he was going to play that game he’d better bring better material. The story went from funny to an outright legend. Zoey was the master of _unimpressed_ and powerful in her own right. She made him all but crawl for her. What sticks out most about Zoey when Derek thinks back is just how strong she was. Peter has always been somewhat brittle in some respects. Kindness edging into condescension and wit bordering the thin line between harmless and life wrecking. Zoey was a boundary, a hard drawn line in the sand, and she wonders if Peter would have been different if she’d picked them up from practice that day like she was meant to. If just Zoey had survived would this have all gone differently?

Scott hits Jackson in the face and it dissolves into a tug of war. Scott gets a leg up on Jacksons shoulder and tugs his arm up. Jackson snarls and half changes. Stiles says something no doubt cutting and before you can say _dumb idea_ both of her Betas have cocked their heads and decided that dog piling Stiles will solve everything. From the grace with which he falls the play was intentional. She’s always liked that Stiles was somewhat manipulative, wolves in general have which has been problematic from time to time. It’s the adaptability it presents that’s the real draw. Werewolves are creatures of instinct first and rationality a far flung second or third. Adaptability represents creativity and that’s always good when the majority of the group are straight line thinkers.

Maybe that’s what she wants, to be able to change, but she can’t see how just _having_ Stiles would accomplish that. Peter says something cutting from the sidelines and she can see Stiles say something back. The old hunger starts in her mouth and she stops her jaw from changing by sheer force of will. Isaac makes his five minute call and she spares one last thought for strong, dead Zoey and the person Peter might have been. She doesn’t want to grow into Peter and she can’t figure out if having Stiles would push her toward or away from it. She’s not sure if finding out is worth the cost if she’s wrong.

Downstairs is a tumble to get to the food, though there’s always enough, and then a tumble to get outside to eat. The living room is half finished and there’s an urban legend that says if you stand near the unfinished panelling on the far wall you can still hear Lydia’s frustrated screaming. Derek hasn’t bothered to check if it’s true for herself and has just accepted Stiles and Scott’s solemn faces for truth.

Isaac has made her plate separate because he’s still working through things. Somewhere between the third time he’d snuck her extra food and the first time he punched a guy out for ogling her Derek had accepted the mother-sister-brother position he’d shoved her in to. Now that she’s really comfortable she can appreciate the extra potatoes and the fact that Isaac knows how much she likes vegetables. Isaac hands her a fork and makes a really upset face until she shovels something –dirty rice, the taste of liver is strong- and walks away, humming something she’d heard on the radio earlier in the week. She can feel Isaac smirk and any show of confidence on his part is still too new to be dismissed. 

Stiles and Lydia sitting basically on top of each other, Jackson lounging around a at Lydia’s feet, others milling around the general area. From her vantage point on a stack of old and near to rotting wood she watches them.

‘You okay?’ Scott always asks when she eats a little separate from them.

 ‘Contemplating things,’ like screwing your best friend because _mother nature_ said so _,_ ‘it’s been nearly four months without a huge crisis.’

‘Jinx it and I’ll punch you.’ Scott says with a spoon of beans in his mouth.

‘Why would I jinx it? I finally got the wiring done.’

‘Yeah’ Scott says, soft about the eyes, ‘that’s good.’

She’s really got to train them all better. Scott’s got this warm glow that says he’s reading too much into her decision to rebuild. She’s not moving on. Her family _died_ here. She’s just putting some new paint on old wounds and calling them healed. She’s got wide open eyes about how damaging her guilt complex is and how much she should let go of the anger. The question stops being when she can let go and becomes what does she have if she does. It’s nice that none of them have experienced so much loss that this is an obvious line of thought and irritating that she has to think of ways to explain it.

‘You’ll have to go somewhere else for pack meetings in about a month.’

‘Stiles and Lydia will be gone.’ Scott somehow consumes all his food in three bites in that way only teenage boys manage. ‘Me and Isaac will be at the vet anyway.’

‘Jackson?’

‘Screw him,’ Scott says with no real heat, ‘he’s apprenticing under the mayor or something.’

‘I don’t think that’s how it works.’

‘It’s not a problem, anyway.’ Scott hands his plate to Isaac when he comes around glaring softly at her mostly full plate. She rolls her eyes and takes a mouthful of meat. Isaac beams approval and drifts away again. ‘Is this about-’

‘Yes.’ He’s not a virgin, there’s no reason to be awkward about it, ‘and really, Scott?’

‘You’re an _alpha._ ’ He says with the same tone many say _girl_ but that’s the good thing about Scott, kids got no real sense of enforced gender norms. It’s never occurred to him to be afraid of or for her because of what is or isn’t between her legs.

She cuffs him over the head, ‘yeah, so just _ask._ ’

‘Sorry.’ He perks up, visibly and turns with a smile. ‘Stiles, hey.’

Suddenly her mind is caught on the tendon in Stiles’ neck and she stops herself from sniffing the air because there are lines and she is not pathetic. Stiles makes a weird face at her and she struggles to smirk back. Eating her food gains new levels of importance.

‘So, what are you talking about over here?’ Stiles asks eyes still firmly on her. She’s never liked people being perceptive, especially about her.

She gives Scott a baleful look when he goes to say something. ‘We have to rearrange some stuff before you go.’

‘Like what?’

‘Emergency numbers, what to do if you run into a new pack, the ordinary.’

‘You, run away and call you, and this has never been ordinary.’

She smiles because that is true, this is nothing like a normal pack. There’d be a lead couple and people with specific designated rolls. No one would leave for longer than a month at a time because the ties would be too strong. She’s deliberately been different. Deliberately been light in her efforts to keep it together, their pack is more like a loosely knit scarf. The strands can pull apart with ease but at the same time it’s flexible and easy to repair. The likelihood of Derek reaching 40 is minimal, hell, the likelihood of Derek living to 30 is minimal and the bonds of childhood don’t always stay strong. If they want to leave she’ll let them, if they want to bring in new people she’ll let them. It feels more like she’s guarding them than leading them, if she learnt anything from Gerard it’s that she isn’t the best at making choices for herself or others.  

‘You have too much faith in me.’ She says without any weight behind the words.

Stiles gives her a small fond look before shaking his head. He turns to look out into the forest, dark now and full of small moving shadows. ‘Nope, pretty sure that’s not it.’

She could ask what he means but that would be almost embarrassingly selfish. Instead she eats more food, listens to the noise and watches the forest flicker under the sky.

\--

The closer it gets to Lydia and Stiles leaving the angrier everything makes her.

Firstly, two of her pack are leaving and she has always been selfish about the people she’s decided are important. Secondly, Stiles is the easiest way to deal with the Sherriff’s department who are bound and determined to trip her up on something. Thirdly, Peter is getting more violent by the day and Lydia leaving will help exactly none of that.

Jackson has taken to buttering up the local council with his particular brand of lovable douche bag which will hopefully help them in the legal direction in the future. Erica and Boyd are coming back from where ever it is they went this time. Things will be okay, maybe.     

But Lydia and Stiles are still leaving and she can’t help the way she gets scared. As a child they were taught to be alone, to be bored, and there’s the patience that gives you. The ability to entertain yourself for hours in silence. It feels like the first time her parents told her to sit alone in the woods, food and drink and no noise around her. She hadn’t been scared then, her parents were a shout away, but Lydia and Stiles will be much further than that. The silence might get too loud.

She gives herself the anger but sets it toward finding a way to integrate herself back into the town. There’s only so long a town like Beacon Hills will accept a woman living on her own in the woods.

She thinks about opening a store with the left over money. She’s got enough to live for years if she invests right and becoming a part of the landscape will ease small town gossip. Half a literature degree isn’t good for much except arguing. There’s her year and a half of mechanics but she hasn’t got certification for that either. What does a town always need? Memories of the bakery that used to be between her elementary and the high school spring to mind. Eating pastries with her mother as they did the after school pick up. She’s a deft hand at baking; a nice quiet coffee shop wouldn’t go amiss. It’d be worth it just for the mindfuck it would put the pack through. Derek Hale doing something motherly and feminine. That’d shut up all the assholes in town. At least until everyone decides she needs a baby.

And there it is, isn’t it, a ticking time bomb all on its own. She’s a female Alpha and the fact that she isn’t going through men like dogs pissing on trees is bound to catch someone’s attention eventually. Like clockwork her mind goes to Stiles and she lets it fester for a moment, a bright autumn day and a child’s smile, a son for her brother, or twins, boy and a girl so Stiles could have a name of his own. She makes a cup of coffee, mind still wondering about names, up until she dips the cream into her coffee. The coffee mixes and she lets the thought path go as it all swirls in the cup. That’s five minutes a day of useless longing and pining. It’ll get worse when they’re gone. She’s sure it’ll be _pathetic_ by six months.

She drinks her coffee.

A coffee shop.

There a few places in town going, she chooses one in a less busy part of town, a little too far off the track for the school traffic but close enough to one of the two pre schools that it’s likely she’ll need a play area. Just because it’s unlikely she’ll have kids doesn’t mean she shouldn’t get to enjoy them. Setting down roots should be harder than this, than just scrolling through for a place and then calling people to make it happen. It takes her a couple of hours to get the ball rolling, the man on the other end talking about work permits and registration. In 6 months she could have a cafe, if she plays her cards right and has the money.  

Stiles texts her a five minute warning before appearing three minutes early. She’s got her old family ledger on the counter in front of her and a cup of three hour old coffee still milling in the cup under her nose. She closes the ledger with grandiose finality when he glares at her. They stand at a stalemate, looking eye to eye until Derek laughs a little and nods.

‘You’re angry at me for leaving.’ He says immediately. Which is kind of a lie, really. She’s angry he’s leaving. She’s angry in general.

‘No,’ lie again, ‘you want to go and that’s fine.’

‘But you don’t want me to.’

The cold coffee is staining the cup.  She rolls the cup in her hands and sets about washing it. ‘I’m your Alpha; I don’t like any of you being out of my line of sight.’

‘Oh,’ he says with clear disappointment, ‘so Berkeley is-’

‘Uncomfortable.’ She smiles a little to ease the tension, ‘but manageable.’

‘If it gets bad you can just come see us.’ He says desperately.

She can’t, actually.

‘I know.’

 He’s appeased which is all she wanted, long hands grasping the ledger and looking through it. ‘So, what’s this for?’

Since her hands are already wet she starts washing the rest of the stuff too. ‘We’ve kept hand written accounts of major transactions for a couple hundred years.’

‘That’s really...’

‘Creepy?’

‘Useful, actually, less paper trail.’

She raises an eyebrow at the word choice and he makes an overly expressive face. She runs out of things to wash and wonders if she can just start throwing things at the wall to get out of this. ‘So why are you actually here? You could have just texted me.’

‘You never answer my texts.’

‘You use _emoticons._ ’

 ‘I express myself.’ He says indignantly, rolling back on his heels and looking skyward. ‘I’m not sure I’m making the right choice and, well, I need to know what you think of it.’

She makes a noise to continue.

‘There’s someone I like a lot and the idea of not being able to see them is like having tacks stuck into my toes. And then those tacks getting infected. And my toes falling off.’

She rolls her eyes, ‘lovely prose.’

‘You know what I mean.’ He says softly. Her hands are still in the water and she’s glad for it, her claws extend and she presses the tips gently against her skin. Pressure and pain reminding the rest of her to stay human.

‘If I don’t?’ The words are nearly painful in her mouth but every point still stands. He’s still young and she’s still broken and what are they really offering each other anyway?

‘Then the question answers itself, doesn’t it?’ his voice drops on the end, ‘I thought we- I guess I was wrong. I’ll see you before we go, yeah?’

She’s fucked up, royally. Can feel the distance stretch already. Words to fix it don’t come and she’s saying, ‘this doesn’t change things between us,’ to the sharp lines of his shoulders and his lowered head as he walks out of her house. His heartbeat fades away and the sea salt smell of him grows stronger in the absence. The plug goes out of the sink and the water is red with the blood from the shreds she’s made of her own hands.

\--

The spring hits Peter in the middle of the night. He nearly takes her head off as she bodily drags him to the basement and locks his hands behind his head. She tells the rest of the pack to stay away. Lydia says she and Stiles are leaving ahead of schedule and she misses them by a few hours while she’s down in the dark with Peter making sure he doesn’t claw himself to pieces. She owes him that dignity at least.

The only time she ever hears Peter talk about Zoey is in the dead of night, when he’s stopped pulling against the chains and has resorted to half drawn out groans, begging to have her back.

He says he loves her just once and with that Derek decides that this won’t be her. Not ever.

\--

The last person Derek spoke to before the fire was Natalie. She said she’d show her the secret room in the forest if she could go one day without smashing little Billy Bensons face into the ground for having the gall to tease her. Natalie was a smile of inhuman teeth and flash pan mischief. Natalie was like a strike of thunder when it’s darkest. Her grave, when Derek gets around to marking them all down, is right at the centre as undisturbed as the day she was metaphorically laid down.

On the anniversary it’s her grave that Derek comes closest to crying over.

\--

If there’s one thing Derek never wants to hear again it’s the phrase, ‘ _wild animal attacks’_.

Due to the unfortunate brand of Hale luck she got triple dosed with that’s all it’s been for two whole months. Three attacks in the last month, ripped up carcasses and trails of blood that lead nowhere. There’s a new monster in the woods and Derek is down two of her pack. She’s down the _researchers_ of her pack which is a handicap she should have seen coming. There are other options, of course, the Argents still live here, but things are sour with them having killed their patriarch. She contemplates calling Lydia and Stiles and asking for advice but she’d nearly crushed the phone while talking to Lydia a week ago and she imagines having to deal with Stiles will start meaning heavy damage repair. The others know she’s anxious and only half are dealing with it well.

Isaac and Jackson have taken to tripping her up around the house, both with an abandonment complex and serious authority issues. She remembers the first time she threw Jackson across a room and all it got him was hard. That had been really annoying. She’s extra vicious on him just to make sure he doesn’t fall into equating sex with power. Whether it’s for his benefit for him or some poor, pretty thing down the road its best that Jackson remembers that every woman he knows has claws. How he equated her viciousness with vulnerability she’ll never know.

Isaac was never really attracted to her for various reasons. After he was turned it was because he’d suddenly been allowed to express a ferocious attraction to everything and once he’d settled it was because of the unfortunate and she’s guessing somewhat permanent draw to Scott. Isaac is more like a born wolf than any bitten wolf she’s ever seen. That’s not saying he was made for it, just that he’s far more in touch with his immediate instincts than the others. There’s an obvious answer to why that is and since she can’t kill Isaac’s father again there’s no point dwelling.  

Scott was never interested in anything that wasn’t Allison and that still burns a little.

Strangely enough, in the last few months it’s been Peter that’s stepped up. Sometimes she catches him almost off guard, looking at an old crack in the floor or standing in what was his old room. His room with Zoey. As things stand Peter is still a threat and he won’t ever stop being one but she can almost see something else. It’s not good for Derek to stay wrapped in her memories and her loathing. The same is evidently not true for Peter.

Peter is out the back toward the unofficial Hale memorial. He’s holding wolfsbane in gloved hands, eyes heavy on where Derek’s mother, Peter’s sister, is buried.

‘Niece.’ 

She nods at him. ‘Peter. Do you know anything about a series of animal attacks in the area?’

He snorts. ‘I would _love_ to know how you’re going to blame me for this one.’

‘I’m not. When you decide it’s time to kill me and assume power again I’ll worry.’

‘You’ve calmed down a lot.’

She turns her head up to the sky. ‘Tired is not calm.’

She’s come home from a war, a long one, and this is a brief reprieve. Battles seem to insist on coming to Beacon Hills and she keeps on fighting them off. Weariness comes for everyone eventually, it just got her first. She’s well aware that even after all this time she knows shit all about anything and as much as it scrapes her inside she needs Peter. She knows he knows this. He’s going to betray her. Her paranoia is completely in proportion here. She’ll probably be shocked and blindsided by it still because he’s family and she’s built like that.  

Peter hums a tune under his breath, low enough only she can hear. ‘You might make an Alpha yet.’

Peace has no use for war veterans. Derek’s been running against a clock from the second Kyle Argent whispered _stupid girl._ It might be Peter. It might be another rogue. It might be herself. She could stretch it out by running. Could go right now and give herself years. Her search history has a list of permits and her betas are worried about whether or not she’s eating and she’s so anxious at not being within a fifteen minute drive of a third of her pack it’s likely to end in blood. Sure, people giving a damn has never stopped anyone dying and one day, probably soon, Derek is going to die horribly and probably meaninglessly.

But it’s not today.

Peter whispers, ‘I wonder what they would think of us now.’

She stays quiet. Some thoughts are better left to the silence.

\--

After three months of it itching under skin she breaks and goes to see Stiles and Lydia. The boys are coming with her and Peter is holding down the fort. If it weren’t for Lydia explicitly telling him that treason would end badly for him she’s sure she’d come back to a freshly taken over town and a dirt plot with her name on it. The drive out is easy enough until she finds herself actually on campus, walking through the students and feeling weirdly alien in the crowd. She can’t smell or hear anything but the pounding of feet and she can’t imagine being here for longer than it takes to check in with Stiles and Lydia. Seems she’s grown into her childhood home again.

Lydia, although she probably hasn’t noticed, has a group of stunned admirers obviously waiting for her attention. Derek knows how she looks and is just as aware of how she and Lydia must look together. She’s not at all surprised when Lydia’s hands dip low to the swell of her ass and up again.

‘It’s good to see you,’ she says first followed by, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘About?’

‘This,’ she shrugs, ducks and screams _now_ , and suddenly Stiles is launching a water balloon at her face. She remembers just in time that she’s meant to be human and therefore incapable of growling or howling or growing claws. The balloon hits her square in the face and explodes, faintly smelly water rolls off down her face.

Stiles stills waiting for a reaction. She thinks she should fuck him and then she thinks she should bite him and eventually it rolls down to chasing him and seeing how much _he_ likes smelly stuff in his face.

She smiles like she imagines a sorority girl or whatever kind of normal girl that goes to this place does, knows when the sudden bloom of arousal lights up that she’s got it.

‘Well shit.’ Stiles says before turning and running in the opposite direction. She laughs and chases.   

She tackles him to the ground in his room and she’s got her nose pressed to the damp skin of his throat before she thinks better of it. The flush of want goes higher and higher until she’s singing with it. She leans off and says, ‘I won.’

He rolls his eyes and falls back on the floor. ‘As always, dear Alpha.’

‘How are you?’ She lies down on the floor next to him. Draws deep even breathes. Dorm rooms smell horrible.

‘I’m okay.’ He says with a wide smile. He’s good here. Happy. Just as it eases something in her it screws with something else. She rolls to look at the ceiling covered in pictures of the woods and the stars. How did he get away with that? Her arm flops down and their fingers are separated by a bare centimetre.  

She brushes their fingers for a moment and then draws back. ‘That’s all that really matters.’

\--

Thirteen seconds after she signs the deed for the new property she gets a call from the Sherriff.

‘Your _boys,_ ’ is all he says with a hiss on the end before hanging up.

She sighs deeply, politely leaves the real estate agent and heads over to the Sherriff’s department. Contrary to popular belief she is not actually well acquainted with the place. She’d have no idea that the receptionists name was Lucy if not for the name tag and the fact that she was working on _That Night_ almost a year ago now.

That Night as they’ve taken to calling it ended with Stiles nearly dead and the Sherriff’s department pro-Hunter in all but actual words. It’s one of her worse moments, a terrible decision made with half the information and a cocky swagger she’s learnt to stop using. She learnt from it. So did the Sherriff. The only reason Stiles isn’t chained to a desk somewhere is his age and the fact that Stiles learnt to pick locks a long time ago.

The Alpha Pack came in the middle of the day. Stormed the school and dragged all the werewolf inclined students into the gym and strung them up. It’d been four hours of torture over the loud speakers before Derek could get in to the school let alone into the gym. This is not how she fucked up. That comes later.

The Sherriff arrived with a bullet proof vest and righteous anger. He gets inside all the way to the werewolves before she does and this is where she fucks up, instead of pulling back and telling the Sherriff about the danger she let him become collateral. She knows Stiles doesn’t think of it that way, which is a small blessing, but everyone else knows the score. Stiles did his best to keep him out of the worst of it and that cost him half the skin from his back and any chance of winning a wet t-shirt contest. The Alpha Pack left, statement made and Derek had fucked everything further by not even bothering to stick around to explain. Leaving the rest of the pack and the goddamn Argents to explain _werewolves_ to the law while she ran off half cocked. Derek got the shit beaten out of her, as is her karmic due. The Sherriff came down on the Argent side of the Werewolf-Hunter divide by virtue of it having adults and people who didn’t suck so hard his son nearly died.

Ever since he’s been looking for ways to push her out of town, obviously looking for the solution that ends with the least people dead. She admires the effort and the idea even though for obvious reasons she doesn’t support it.

The worst part was sitting by Stiles bed at night and knowing that this was unequivocally her fault. That he’d screamed _her_ name for 45 minutes while they asked questions.

The Sherriff can hate her for it; it’ll be something they agree on.    

‘They’re in the back.’ The Sherriff says without looking up from his papers. His voice is flat throughout the whole sentence, neutral. She realises with sudden clarity that the Sherriff really doesn’t consider them human. That’s well enough for her and Peter because they aren’t and are actively disinterested in being classified that way but for the others, Scott and Jackson especially, humanity is important.

‘They’re still human underneath it all, sir.’ She says politely, ‘it’s important for them that you treat them like they are.’

‘But they aren’t.’

She rolls a shoulder. ‘One thing wolves have always had over humans is the ability to treat others the way they need to be treated. I’m a lot of different monsters, Sherriff, but I’ll at least look you in the eyes and tell you I’m going to eat you alive. You’ll hurt them by lying to them and I’m not going to let _my_ boys be hurt because you’ve got some stick up your ass about your sons loyalties.’

His hands clench on the paper. ‘Stiles has nothing to do with this.’

She narrows her eyes at him and lets the fangs dip down till they’re pressing over her lip. ‘You just keep saying that.’

Scott, Isaac and Jackson look very guilty and very bloody in the holding cell. She raises one eyebrow and they all immediately roll their shoulders down. She feels a wave of superiority for the exact length of time it takes to remember hubris.

‘Um,’ Jackson says, claws curved over the arm of a dark skinned, dark haired girl sprawled over his lap. ‘We didn’t do it.’

‘Her names Harley.’ Scott says, hands combing the ends of her hair, body tilting protectively around her. Derek remembers a Harley, vaguely, from Scott and Stiles Epic Adventure Story Time, unflappable but prone to gossip. More than willing to talk to them even if she was a stratosphere above them in social rank.

‘She got bit by the rogue.’

A rogue alpha, again.

‘Has she turned?’

‘Yes,’ Isaac says, that gets him a betrayed look from Jackson and Scott. Isaac rolls his eyes and says insistently, ‘well she _has_.’

‘What happened?’

‘We went scouting through the forest.’ Isaac supplies immediately. There’s a reason he’s her favourite. Jackson rolls his eyes. Scott touces Isaac's arm and goes right back to patting Harleys hair. They’re all distraught and off and she can’t figure out why.

‘She was alone.’ Scott says.

‘On the ground.’ Jackson says. ‘There was all this stuff and they had, there was a lot of blood, and she was bleeding on a _fucking altar_ what are we? A bad horror film?’ His voice cracks.

‘We asked it to bite her.’ Isaac. 

‘We didn’t think it would take.’ Scott. 

So there’s a weird bloody altar thing and a rogue who takes requests. ‘Anything else.’

‘Yes. Loads.’ Scott says hands fluttering uselessly around Harley’s hips. A small sour noise escapes her lips and all three of them are immediately reaching out to touch. It’s such an absurd picture that she almost lets them. She snaps her fingers and makes a noise sub vocally. They all galre mutinously and pull back. 

She leans down until ‘Are you okay?’

Harley opens one bright gold eye and lets out a noise like a hiss.

‘No is fine too.’ Derek smirks, inhuman and graceful, there’s no point sugar coating, and she’s heard all of it anyway. ‘I’m going to bite you again now, on your wrist, you can say no but if you do I’ll probably have to kill you.’

‘Derek.’ They say together.

She ignores them. ‘You were listening to what they said? You know what’s happening right now?’

‘Yes.’ Harley says decisively. ‘To both.’

Derek smiles with her big teeth and opens wide.


End file.
